


Exceeding Expectations

by fields_of_clover



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-16
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 12:13:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7221925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fields_of_clover/pseuds/fields_of_clover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jemma Simmons is a brilliant engineer/neuroscientist/doctor, who works for SHIELD during the day, but has a quiet, full, happy life of her own, off-base as well.</p>
<p>Leo Fitz is her no-nonsense, hardened, previously injured, immediate supervisor, who for a very long time had no idea who she is, or what she is capable of, but when he is finally faced with her undisputed genius, he can't help but want to know more about the amazingly humble, exceptionally smart, beautiful woman, who has been quietly working beside him... for years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dr. Jem

"Biological specimens are collected in blue evidence bags, lab tech," he said a bit scathingly.

The woman in the lab coat looked around, then met his icy blue eyes, realizing he was addressing her, "I am well aware, Dr. Fitz."

Then, she mumbled something that sounded sing-songy.

"Excuse me?"

The beautiful young woman boldly met his cool gaze, and shrugged and smiled, singing, "B is for blue is for biological."

He looked at her like she'd grown a third ear, then he turned and walked away, mumbling, "Forget it."

She smiled a bit wider, and tilted her head, "Forgotten."

______

 

"Mack, can you tell me what you did to improve Doc's sensors the last time he was serviced?"

Mack rubbed the back of his neck, "I didn't service him last. Coulson had Jem perform all technology-based preventative maintenance last quarter. She must have seen the opportunity to improve something in your design."

Fitz raised an eyebrow, "Improve my-what? Who is Jem?"

Mack raised his eyebrows, "Are you, or are you not, the head of SHIELD's Science and Technology Division?"

Fitz at least looked a little embarrassed, clearing his throat, "Bobbi, uh, she deals with the-uh the people-side of that."

Mack chuckled softly, "You don't say."

Fitz dismissed Mack's good-natured sarcasm, "Come on... Could you just point her out? The work done to Doc was really innovative. I'd like to discuss some other possibilities with Dr. Jem."

Daisy appeared just then, "I thought all of you child prodigies belonged to a secret club, where you met secretly as children under the cloak of darkness... Don't your Spidey-senses zing you right in your boy-bits when two of you are in close proximity to one another in the wild?"

He glared at her, "Daisy, please don't talk about my... boy-bits."

She shrugged, "Seriously though, I thought you were well-aware that you were working with one of your own."

"What are you talking about?"

"Jem... She got her first PhD from MIT in engineering, when she was fourteen."

"Fourteen?!... ... Wait... Her first?"

"She has three doctorates. Her second PhD is in Neuroscience. She got that one when she was seventeen."

"And the third?"

"She's also an MD. She said she was able to complete the Neuroscience and Medical doctorates concurrently, so she finished that last one up before she turned nineteen, then completed a whirlwind residency and fellowship, completing everything by the time she was twenty-two."

"Why do you both know her, and I don't?"

Mack shrugged, "You aren't very observant, when it comes to people, Turbo."

Daisy added, "And you're kind of an ass to people you don't think are as intelligent as you."

He threw up his arms defensively, "What?! That's not fair... I don't even know her."

Daisy rolled her eyes, "You've worked with her for three years, Idiot... Good luck talking to her, though, if you don't know who has been completing all of the tech work around here besides you."

Fitz put his hands on his hips, "I-I do know... but it isn't Dr. Jem."

He motioned in the air with his hand, trying to pull the appropriate name out of thin air, "It's Dr. Simmons. I email him his project work, and he completes the tasks in his work queue. It's as simple as that. He's fast and efficient and skilled... and I've never had any issues with our arrangement."

Daisy raised an eyebrow, "So, you just email Dr. Simmons, and the work gets done?"

"Yeah," he nodded, puzzled by Daisy's pointed look.

Daisy looked at him incredulously, "Wow... Now I know how you'd have treated me, if we hadn't been trapped on the bus together."

He didn't understand, "Wait-What? Come on... I'm nice."

"You are an idiot, Fitz," she mumbled, then walked away.


	2. Testing the Waters

Fitz pulled out his tablet, and ran a database search: Science and Technology Division > PhD > MD > Engineering/Neuroscience/Medical > Enter

Great... He WAS an idiot.

______

 

When she walked in on Monday morning, he was staring at his computer screen, which was new. He usually worked fairly opposite what she did, so generally, they only shared lab space for approximately one hour a day, if at all.

And, if he was working on something that kept him in the lab for longer periods of time, she took her work out to the garage, and worked alongside Mack for the day.

She sighed quietly, and started to fill her lab coat with the few supplies she knew she'd need for today, that were not already stocked in the garage, then she clicked into her email, to pull the day's tasks from her work queue. 

The list was fairly extensive, so she pulled a wiped tablet from the tech closet, and quickly cloned the applications she would need for the day, then loaded them onto the tablet, along with the live feeds for the biological simulations she was tracking for Bobbi, before she turned to head out to the garage.

"Lab tech."

She turned, "Yes, Dr. Fitz?"

"I need you to make sure the Safety Data Sheets are updated and valid for the entire base."

She quietly replied, "It's no longer necessary to do that, Dr. Fitz. When you assigned me the same task six months ago, I networked the SHIELD data servers with our scientific media suppliers, our cleaning supply vendors, and the media-technology division retailers, so all SD sheets will automatically update in our medical-safety database whenever a new one is produced by one of the manufacturing bodies."

He nodded, then looked at her shrewdly, "Can you grab me the dwarves?"

She smiled, then nodded, "They are on quinjet four. I'll be right back."

______

 

An hour later, after grabbing him supply after supply with a smile, and happily acting like she was his personal assistant, she turned to head out to the garage, to start her own duties for the day.

"Hey," he called her back.

She turned, "Yes, Dr. Fitz?"

"What's your name, lab tech?"

He waited for her to introduce herself as Dr. Jemma Simmons, brilliant engineer, neuroscientist, and medical doctor, but that didn't happen.

She smiled, and tilted her head at the surly engineer, "Don't you know?"

He narrowed his eyes at her for a moment, but she just smiled, flashing her straight white teeth, "'Lab tech.' It's worked for three years, no real reason to change things up now, Dr. Fitz."

He hid his smile well behind his cool gaze, "What if I need to email something to your work queue?"

She shrugged, not intimidated in the least, "If you email Dr. Simmons or Agent Morse, I'm sure I'll get it, sir."

Then, she turned and left.

______

 

"Bobbi?"

"Hmmm, " she asked, without looking away from her computer screen.

"How well do you know Jemma Simmons?"

She nodded, distractedly, "Pretty well... She's brilliant, isn't she?"

He was an idiot, "Yeah... She seems to be."

She turned her head to look at him, "Why, Fitz?"

He just shrugged, "Never mind... "

She gave him odd look, "Okay... But, you are actually going to show your support at the Deathlok wrap-up, right?"

"She-she's working with Mike?"

She rolled her eyes, "Fitz, she's been working with Mike for months... And wrap-up's scheduled for next Thursday in Vault C... God... Do you ever know what's going on in our department?"

He blushed, and rubbed the back of his neck, "Apparently not."


	3. Deathlok Archives

That evening, he pulled up Mike Peterson's health and maintenance progress notes. 

There were weekly, dated video feeds, archived from seven months prior, with the most recent being last Thursday, so he started watching them.

Six hours later, he was amazed.

She was giving Mike his life back. 

Initially, she'd evaluated him, his hardware, his viscera. Then, she told him what she'd be able to do for him, with easy confidence, letting him know that he had options, and that Director Coulson was sparing no expense for Mike to have whatever he wanted.

When he told her that he still wanted to be able to put his Deathlok programming to work for SHIELD, but also be able to go home at night and not scare his son, she smiled kindly, and hugged him, before pulling out her phone and showing him a picture and mumbling something that made him smile.

She started by updating his hardware systems, and miniaturizing his technology and weapons, so he was able to carry the same fire power, but with a significant mass and weight reduction, making sure that all of his systems could be hidden within his bio-synthetic prostheses, prostheses that she had wrapped in bio-synthetic skin, not only matching his pigment, and mirroring his actual limbs, but also capable of transmitting bio-electrical nerve impulses, so he could touch and feel with them.

She made sure that his body was appropriately balanced, and symmetrical, and that his range of motion and flexibility were enhanced, so that when he walked and moved, he looked like a regular man, his robotic joints moving with the smooth fluidity characteristic of organic viscera and synovial joint articulation, without reducing his overall enhanced physical strength.

Then, she designed him a new cybernetic eye, which retained all of the overall functionality of the original, but she amplified his bio-feedback sensors, allowing him to monitor his android systems, as well as his organic biological systems, and she made the outward appearance identical to the shape, size, and color of his organic eye. 

Thru several micro-surgeries, she meticulously implanted and integrated her newly developed, synthetically engineered micro-neurons, each nerve fiber designed with a surrounding protein and phospho-lipid sheath, exponentially increasing the speed of impulse conduction, making his reflexes inhuman, even through his robotic sensors. 

She carefully excised the dense, non-elastic, fibrotic scar tissue from his right shoulder and face and arm, where he'd sustained substantial thermal burns, and she used synthetic organ fibers to repair his underlying viscera, using micro-suture technology. Then, she used a synthesized vasculating compound to promote almost instant angiogenesis, enabling the development of new micro-circulation vessels, creating a new, grossly sufficient, blood supply for necessary connective tissue restoration, including collagen fibers, fatty, and elastic tissues. She bathed the exposed fatty tissue and wound edges with an antibacterial wash, then used a blue tip laser to stimulate the subcutaneous and dermal skin cell surfaces, before approximating them, using a cyanoacrylate substance to adhere each tissue layer to the other using polymerization. She smoothed the exposed, damaged, epidermal cell surfaces, and applied a synthetic bonding agent, containing both collagen and elastin, to promote healing, reduce scarring, and improve overall skin surface flexibility, while also protecting his body from pathogenesis.

She later performed a complete right blepharoplasty, restoring the appearance of his right eyelid to be an exact mirror image of his left, so save some very, very minor residual scarring on his scalp, Mike was restored to his previous, symmetrical and well-formed, one-hundred percent human appearance.

Then, Dr. Simmons did extensive neurological/biological integration and extensive mechanogenic programming and testing, and according to Dr. Simmon's filed care plan, the coming Thursday was to be his last visit to the base for his final left upper extremity prosthesis sensory-motor evaluation.


	4. Dr. Jemma Simmons, PhD, PhD, MD

Fitz had taken to watching Dr. Simmons, when she wasn't aware she was being watched, and he found her daily routine to be quite flawless. 

She arrived everyday around 8:45 am, gathered her work tasks, prioritized them, and completed them, quickly and efficiently, stopping only for a thirty minute lunch, somewhere towards the middle of her day.

If he made a random verbal request, no matter how mundane, even for printer ink, she did whatever he needed, with a smile, before returning to her own tasks, and everyday, she cleaned up her work space, said good-bye to the lab techs, addressing them by name, and left the base around five, presumably to go home for the evening.

______

 

On Tuesday, he was making modifications to Director Coulson's prosthetic hand, when one of his own hands started shaking, the unfortunate product of an old field injury. 

In frustration, he spewed a string of profanities, and tossed his tools onto the counter, causing the lab to empty in record time, under the guise of lunch, except for Jem, who watched him carefully from the sidelines, until he, too, sighed and left the laboratory.

When he returned to the lab later that evening to resume his work, he found that the modifications had been expertly completed, and his project finished to his exact specifications.

______

 

"Lab tech... "

"Yes, Dr. Fitz?"

"Will you come here for a moment?"

"Sure," she smiled, and stepped over to his work station.

"Where is your identification badge?" he asked.

She pulled it from her pocket and held it out to him.

He took it gently from her hand, and looked at it for a moment, "Dr. Jemma Simmons."

She smiled, "That's me."

"Why didn't you ever say anything?"

"About what?" She looked genuinely puzzled.

"About me calling you lab tech."

"Ohh... There was no need to say anything," she shrugged. "Address me however you see fit. I'm pretty flexible. Whatever works."

"How are you not like every other child-genius prodigy I've ever encountered?"

"I don't know, sir. You are the only person I've ever met, who has an equivalent intelligence quotient... but I just-I like normal people. I like the way they think... I find it unnecessary to congratulate myself for being gifted... I appreciate what I've been given, but sometimes... "

She sighed, "Sometimes, it doesn't matter how smart you are in a completely hopeless situation."

He nodded, "Sadly, I find that to be a completely true statement."


End file.
